I feel stifled.

I’m sitting in front of what feels like an overwhelming clutter catastrophe and I’ve declared our house national disaster.  I don’t expect the Red Cross to show up any time soon.  There are no fatalities and the only injury so far is the bruise from the Kikkerland head massager falling on my hand (hey, that copper is heavy).  I’d be relieved if I found out (magically, of course) that helper elves and little brownies actually existed.  If that was reality, my house would be clear of Christmas debris, and I suppose Santa would have trimmed my tree with some Tiffany bling or dropped off that unicorn I always wanted.

I’ve been going through this annoying phase where I continually think about obsess over the amounts of garbage we as humans create.  I don’t let it affect me too much, but the massive piles of cardboard, ripped wrapping paper, packing peanuts, tags, plastic–I’ll stop–etc., is annoying the shit out of me.

It’s challenging meshing two households into one.  The laugh over that is that we haven’t officially meshed anything beyond daily necessities and added my cats.  But, where do we put stuff?  For instance, we got 8 red wine glasses, 8 white wine glasses and 8 square champagne flutes for Christmas (all stemless and from various family members, ironically).  They’re hanging out displaced on the counters with no prospect to be found a home anytime soon.

With my future hubby at the Espes on Merry Day

We found a house in the Madison Park neighborhood of Seattle last weekend that we are pretty jazzed about.  The owners live out of state and the house has been on and off the market for almost six months and it’s dropped in price a couple of times, which is actually a perfect opportunity to buy.  While we’ve decided that to wait a little while to purchase until it’s looking like housing prices are hitting near bottom, Gustavo is talking to our real estate agent on Monday about contacting the sellers of this place to ask if they’re interested in possibly renting to us.  Of course, they’d have to be willing to give us a year lease – it may not pan out.  But it’s an idea I came up with that seems feasible and fairly reasonable.  Tavo and I are definitely ready for a place we both fit into; 950 square feet is generous, but for us it’s just a scosh more than too cozy.  I’ll have pictures up in a few days; they don’t do the place justice, but you get an idea of its warmth and offerings.

The paternal side of the family on Merry Day 2010

I’m stifled with yoga, too.  I’m taking a few days off this week to plow through some YTT homework and work on my research paper.  Early last week, I met with my yoga teacher and mentor, Eza, and talked about my fears of failing the training.  Her answer was simple and insightful yet still fed the anxiety I have around not passing (which is mainly an irrational fear).  Eza said, It’s OK if you don’t pass.   I can take another training, and that sounds easy enough.  Reasonable.  Less pressure.  Most teachers take quite a few teacher trainings in their careers.  But, like Eza, I’m driven.  I’m hard on myself, and I feel myself falling into the same traps I tripped up into while in college.  I get stuck on a difficult or challenging assignment or something that scares the shit out of me (teaching my sequences to a group of friends or peers, for example), and…I…stop.  I give up on myself.  I shut down and wait for some magical inspiration to lift me up and set me free.  That won’t happen.  The cycle is frustrating.  Being preoccupied with my dad in the hospital and continuing to have complications doesn’t make my focus on yoga or YTT any easier.

I know I’m improving, though.  In yoga classes, I surprise myself with improvements on poses and I follow along in flow much better than I used to (I am not a fan of flow, and I avoid it at most cost).   I surprise myself at how well I know the Sanskrit names of poses when I read them or create a sequence or hear a teacher call them out.  And there are other things.  And there are aspects of the yogic tradition that make less sense to me (that’s where I get tripped up), like koshas.  So, I’m dedicating this week to more improvement and writing that paper.

And speaking of writing: I even feel stifled in my writing.  I bore myself with the banal updates of my life when I could share thoughts on all the interesting things I read or chat with Gustavo about.  Where is that passion?  The fire?  I know, I asked this a couple of days ago…

I need someone to lend me some exhales.  I need to mentally withdrawal from my attachment to an immaculate house, or a perfect final exam score, or being that writer I used to be.  It’s true when the Buddha said that desire, attachment, expectation is suffering.  Sometimes, it’s the worst kind of suffering there is–maybe more so than physical suffering.

Tavo is reading and the cats are fast asleep on the sofa while I finish writing.  It is time to shut off Ben Lee and contemplate what comes next for the evening.

We had a fantastic Christmas this year.  I hope you did as well.

With love.